/Awakening/
No mist, no screaming. Only the slow, steady beeping that Shepard realized was a heart monitor that woke her back to consciousness.
As the haze lifted from her vision, she looked over near the window and noticed a familiar form sleeping, uncomfortably it seemed, in a chair near the bed.
"Garrus?" Shepard asked weakly, nearly silently, from having not spoken at all from the coma she'd been in after activating the Crucible.
At once, Garrus Vakarian, her Turian lover, trusted friend and crew member from the Normandy, sprang up and shouted for the Doctor to come into the hospital room.
"Shepard", Garrus replied. The sub-harmonics of his voice quavering, seeing the love of his life awake, after almost 6 months in a coma. "Thank the Spirits you're awake…"
"How.. How long was I out?" Asked the Commander, shakily. "Wait… what happened? The last thing I remember was activating the Crucible." Her thoughts were interrupted by the same soft British accent she heard when she briefly woke up yesterday.
"Commander Shepard, savior of the Galaxy and Defeater of the Reapers" said Doctor Karin Chakwas, beaming and wiping away a happy tear. "When Garrus shouted for me, I was afraid we were going to have to sedate you again. I'm glad that is not the case."
"Karin... Dr. Chakwas, you had to sedate me?" Asked the Commander, taking a better stock of her surroundings "Why?"
"Well, you woke up yesterday and started trying to rip your IVs out and escape the room. Something about Cerberus as well." replied the doctor. "You were thrashing around so much, I needed Garrus here to hold you down."
"I'm sorry, Shepard" said Garrus, his eyes surveying Shepard's many tubes and medical apparatus attached to her battered body. "We didn't have a choice."
"That's ok, Garrus - I'd have done the same thing" replied Shepard. "What the hell happened to me?"
"Our best guess is that, after activating the Crucible, the section of the citadel you were in suffered major damage and broke apart, and you were pinned under some debris." the Turian replied, looking away slightly as he recited the story.
"Luckily, the Citadel beam in London was still operational, and Admiral Hackett had a team on the ground looking for survivors within a few hours."
"They found Admiral Anderson's body…" Garrus stopped mid-sentence, not knowing if Shepard remembered the Illusive Man forcing her to shoot him in the stomach on the Citadel.
"I remember, Garrus" replied Shepard. "The Illusive Man had control of both us, and forced me to shoot Anderson."
"I should have been stronger, been able to resist.." cried Shepard, as the memory of her old friend's face came back to her as he died.
*"You did good, kid. I'm…. proud of you…"* the last words of Admiral David Anderson rang in her ears and she broke into fresh sobs.
Garrus sat up on her hospital bed and placed his arms tenderly around the broken woman. "It's alright, Shepard. You took care of that son of a bitch." Garrus added, trying to bring her back from the pit of despair.
"Wait… how did you know that I killed him?" Asked Shepard, meekly. "The rescue team found the Illusive Man's body near Anderson's, along with your pistol." said Garrus with a chuckle. "It wasn't too hard to put 2 and 2 together."
"Since you called me 'Destroyer of the Reapers', Doc, I'm assuming all is well?" Shepard asked, not wanting to let go of the big Turian.
"Yes, Commander, all is well." replied Dr. Chakwas. "Reports from the troops on the ground show that not only the Reapers were destroyed, but the husks as…"
A frantic Shepard immediately cut her off. "What about EDI and the Geth?!" She asked, nearly out of breath. "The Catalyst said that all Synthetics would be destroyed... along with me, since I had synthetic implants"
Garrus gave Dr. Chakwas a sideways glance. Did he hear Shepard right? She SPOKE to the Catalyst? What is she talking about? They thought to ask about this piece of information but were interrupted at the last minute.
"You rang, Shepard?" Asked a familiar computerized voice.
As if out of nowhere, the sleek synthetic "mobile platform" that is considered EDI's body walked through the door of the hospital room. As Shepard gazed at her unshackled AI friend and crewmate, her smile went ear to ear.
"EDI! I'm so glad to see you!" she said. "I was so worried that my decision might have cost you your life."
"A minor setback with my core programming triggered by the energy of the Crucible caused me to temporarily malfunction." replied EDI. "The energy surge also caused the Normandy to crash on an uncharted planet, but Jeff ensured that there were no casualties and the ship incurred only minor superficial damage."
"Commander, permission to give you a hug." Said EDI, almost sensing that's what Shepard sorely needed.
"Permission granted, EDI! Get the hell over here!" replied Shepard. The synthetic woman embraced her Commander softly, knowing he was still in considerable pain, no matter how well the medication was doing its job.
"The Normandy crashed, again?" asked Shepard, this time with a slight laugh as EDI released her. "That needs to stop. Seriously."
"What about the Geth?" added Shepard "Anything from Rannoch or their fleet?"
"I believe I can answer that question for you, Shepard." The voice was all-too familiar to the Commander, even in her condition. Admiral Tali'Zorah vas Normandy, the Quarian engineer and practically little sister to Shepard, walked into the room with what everyone could only guess was a smile behind the protective shield of her livesuit helmet.
"It's the weirdest thing - just like EDI, the Geth had minor malfunctions all through their consciousness, then simply 'turned back on'." Tali replied.
"Tali!" exclaimed Shepard. "I can't tell you how glad I am to see you!" She embraced the little Quarian like she was never going to let go. It was on that day, 4 years ago, that she interfered in Tali's assassination at the hands of thugs hired by the rogue Council Spectre Saren, that the two had been inseparable as friends.
"All is well on Rannoch, Shepard. We can even go without our livesuits for short periods of time, thanks to the advances in technology the Geth have shared with us!" Tali added after removing her arms from Shepard's neck.
"I'm so happy to see you awake, Shepard." replied Tali, choking back tears of her own "Keelah! We all thought that'd we'd lost you again!"
"Alright you two, the Commander has had a time of it and needs to rest. Would you please inform the rest of the Normandy crew that they can visit her starting tomorrow?" said Dr. Chakwas, rather motherly.
"Doctor, I'd like to stay." Garrus requested, once again holding on to Shepard after Tali and EDI said their goodbyes. "The last time I spoke to this woman, I thought I'd lost her forever."
"Granted, Mr. Vakarian." replied Dr. Chakwas, smiling. "Please, let me or Dr. Michel know if she needs anything."
Shepard turned to her lover, and was able to get enough slack out of the tubing and cables to place her hand on his mandible to feel the scar he got when attacked by Jaroth and the other mercs on Omega.
"Thank you, Garrus…" Shepard said, staring into his eyes. "I don't want to be alone."
She quickly fell into a deep sleep, and Garrus never let go once.
